


Trouble Man

by machine_dove



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: ALLCAPS, Actual Creepy Clown Content, Bucky's Plans Are The Worst, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff, Gen, It's mercifully brief, Sam Deserves Better Than These Assholes, Samtember, Samtember2015, Steve Makes Poor Choices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-04-20 22:49:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4805102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/machine_dove/pseuds/machine_dove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve's in trouble, and it's up to Sam to rescue his dumb ass.  Provided, of course, that he manages to survive Bucky's assistance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trouble Man

**Author's Note:**

> There are some nods to Brubaker's amazing Captain America run in here. Happy Samtember!

It was just after noon when Sam Wilson pulled up in front of the dive bar that matched the coordinates Natasha had given him.  Phoenix in August wasn’t his idea of a good time to begin with, and this bar just made it even less appealing.  He double checked the numbers just in case, because Aloha Bill’s Garden O’ Beers wasn’t exactly the sort of place he wanted to go into.  Ever.  His car stood out among the rusted out trucks and battered motorcycles in the parking lot, its sleek blue lines looking even more out of place than usual.  Lilah was an eye-catcher for sure, not quite as souped up as Agent Coulson’s Lola, but with enough tech built into it to make James Bond weep with envy.

“You’d better be here, Barnes.”  He couldn’t do this on his own, he needed backup, and most of the Avengers were tied up on their own missions for at least another day.  This was time-sensitive, he couldn’t afford to wait.

The heat was overwhelming, like walking into an oven, and the lightweight body armor probably didn’t help much, but there was no way in hell he was going into this place without it.  Natasha had only told him that Barnes was here, she didn’t know why, so there was no telling what he was walking in to.  A quick gear check to make sure his weapons (and Stark-issued panic button) were all accounted for, and he was ready.

The interior was dark, and it wasn’t just the contrast from the blazing sun outside.  As his eyes adjusted, it became immediately clear that he either had nothing at all to worry about, or was about to be in for a world of trouble.  It was like walking into the aftermath of a massacre, except the only casualties were the cheap bar furniture, and the only injuries on the bodies on the ground were bloody noses and the odd dislocated shoulder.  At least they were all still breathing.

“You took out the entire bar?  Please tell me they were Hydra or AIM or something?”

“Nope,” Bucky replied from the bar where he finished off his beer.  “Just idiots.”

 

* * *

The thing was that getting his memories back didn’t mean he had returned to the way he was before.  He remembered Steve, sure, but he remembered everything else too.  Vietnam, the Ukraine, what it felt like to be death in the night.  The trajectory of a bullet and the way the spray of blood looked against the snow, and the way Steve’s face felt as broke under his hand on the helicarrier.  The horror of being treated like an object, the pain of having his mind wiped again and again and again.  The small rebellions he didn’t even have context to understand, the way he’d be certain that his targets and  only his targets ended up dead by his hand.  

Steve lived his life in the sun, all conviction and glowing inspiration, making people better just by existing.  Decades of brainwashing and dehumanization rendered Bucky fit only for the shadows where nice folk didn’t ever look.  And yeah, even he knew that some of that was just bullshit and survivor’s guilt, that he wasn’t personally to blame for the things his body had done under someone else’s command, but the fact remained that Bucky was a killer, a damn good one, and that wasn’t all on Hydra.  He had become a killer in the US Army, and had become a better one as a Commando watching Steve’s six.  Hydra hadn’t done anything there except take away his ability to choose when he pulled the trigger.

And he wanted to go back to where he belonged, watching Steve’s back, moon to his sun, but...not yet.  He wasn’t ready for that yet.  For the past year he’d been taking missions for Fury and taking time for himself, putting the pieces back together as best he could.  He texted Steve on occasion, well aware that too much radio silence would have him showing up one day to check in, all sad eyes and disappointment.  So he kept Steve up to date and traveled and healed, and occasionally paired up with Sam or Natasha for the sort of ops he couldn’t handle on his own.  

He liked Sam, genuinely liked him.  He liked even more that he could trust him to take care of Steve, and to not take any of his shit.  Steve was changed too, not the dumb scrawny punk from Brooklyn who couldn’t keep himself out of fights he couldn’t finish, and not the dashing Captain who came out of the flames to rescue him from that factory neither.  Waking up to find out that nearly everyone he knew was gone, everyone who had ever actually known him as  Steve Rogers , rather than the frankly-ridiculous mythology that had grown up around Captain America, had broken something in him.  Having to fight against an enemy who had the  fucking tesseract  that he had  flown a plane into the ocean to disarm (and Bucky would not have tolerated that bullshit if he had been around to stop it, let me just tell you) only two weeks after waking up in the future shattered something more.  Bucky hoped that enough time would soften the jagged edges of their broken places so they could fit together, fight together, laugh together again.  Soon, maybe.  

“So,” Bucky said, “tell me what you need.”

 

* * *

Sam and Steve had been on what should have been a perfectly routine mission - infiltrate a Hydra base, secure the weapon prototypes that were stored there, and burn the rest to the ground.  He should have known better than to think any mission was ever going to be routine, because things started to go sour almost from the start.  Resistance was heavier than they expected, and it seemed like every damn person on the base was already up and armed.  Tied down under heavy fire, Sam couldn’t move in as planned and Steve decided to continue on deeper into the base alone regardless, because who needs backup when you’re a dumbass super soldier with more muscles than sense?

As it turned out, the Hydra base was on alert because the Avengers hadn’t gotten there first.  They’d been beaten to the punch by some second-rate team of losers called the Circus of Crime.

“The...Circus?  Of Crime?”

“Yep.”  

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

“No man, I wish.  But it gets worse.”

It turned out that at least one of the prototypes was some sort of cage powered by energy that looked an awful lot like that given off by the Infinity Gems, and Cap?  He walked right into it.

“That dumb punk.  So where the fuck is he?”

“Don’t know, man.  I need your help tracking him.  They had some sort of teleportation device, and the energy scanner Banner built isn’t picking up any sign of the cage, and I can’t get a track on Cap.  I’ve been able to get the location of a former member of the Circus, I was hoping we could pick up a lead from her.”

 

* * *

Ganado was even worse than Phoenix, something Sam had not honestly thought possible.  He was pretty sure he remembered some bombed-out towns in Afghanistan that were more welcoming.  Bucky crouched next to him, observing their target through his binoculars.

“Looks like she’s holed up in that trailer.  Any ideas how we’re going to draw her out?”

“Oh, I have a few ideas.”

That tone was entirely too familiar, Sam had heard it a time or two from Cap.  Usually right before he did something dumb and dragged Sam along for the ride.  “I’m really, really not going to like this plan, am I?”

Bucky’s grin was blinding.  “Nope.”

 

* * *

He didn’t.   

“Just knock on the door and say hi MY ASS BARNES,” Sam yelled as he tried to deploy the EXO-7 wings.  Unfortunately, the giant snake that currently had him wrapped in its coils made that impossible.  “GET THIS DAMN THING OFF OF ME.”

“Sorry Sam, I thought you could handle one ordinary woman and her pet snake for five damn minutes.  Aren’t you supposed to be an Avenger?  A PJ?  I’m not feelin’ too impressed here.”

“THERE IS A MOTHERFUCKING SNAKE TRYING TO SWALLOW MY ARM, BARNES.  THIS WAS NOT HOW THE PLAN WAS SUPPOSED TO GO!”

Bucky hit Zelda with a stun dart, then pulled off the python with his left arm and tossed it into the scrub.  “Better?  Sheesh, you’d think you’ve never seen a snake before.  The lady’s called Princess Python for a reason you know.”

“Just knock on the door, you said.  Say hi.  Introduce yourself.  I’ll come in from the back before she can respond, Sam.  No, there’s no way in hell she’s going to have her giant pet snake attack you before you can even open your damn mouth, Sam.  Just keep her distracted.  I hate your plans, Barnes.”

Bucky grinned.  “Hey, at least it worked, right?  Now, let’s see what she knows.”

 

* * *

Several hours later, they found themselves outside of an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Lovelock, NV.

“I feel like we could do a lot to cut down on crime in general if we just got rid of all the abandoned warehouses, you know?”

“Let’s go check it out.”

“Hold up, let’s at least get some recon first.”

“I know how to recon, Sam!”  Bucky’s expression wasn’t amused.

“Really?  Because that’s not what I heard.  Cap’s full of stories that seem to involve you running straight into trouble without knowing what you were getting into and getting your dumb ass taken prisoner.”

“He’d better not have said that!  You want to know why I went running into trouble?  Because I was following him.  He’s a damn tactical genius when he stops to think, but when his fists start swinging it’s like his brain just shuts off.”

“I hear that, man.”

 

* * *

The plan was fairly simple, and painfully familiar.

“Really?  Really now?  I go in the front to be attacked by snakes, while you sit back to have a laugh while I’m attacked by what - more snakes this time?  Lions?   Bears? ”

“They don’t have snakes or lions, Sam.  OR bears.”

“Are you sure?  Because you sure as hell forgot to tell me about the snake last time.”

“Positive.  Look, the intel on the current team is solid, and Zelda backed it all up.  There’s the Ringmaster, who can apparently do some sort of hypnosis thing if you let him get away with it, Bruno the Strongman - whose skills should be fairly obvious, but he’s not a super-soldier so if you can survive sparring with me or Steve he shouldn’t give you much trouble.  Then there’s Rajah, who’s a decent fighter but not any kind of metahuman, and Eliot Franklin, the assassin.  I’ll sneak in the back, take out their teleportation device so they can’t get away and get Steve out of that fuckin’ cage.  You come in the front all quiet-like and set up a distraction.”

“And when it all goes sideways?”

“Come on, you’ve got this.”

And he did, at first.  The infiltration went smoothly, and they were both in the building in short order.  The inside of the warehouse was shadowed with one end partitioned off by heavy curtains.  That was, of course, the moment where everything went wrong.

 

* * *

“Bow before me, little bird-man!  You will make an excellent puppet.”

“I don’t know, man.  You’re wearing a sparkly top hat, it’s kind of hard to take you seriously.”

The Ringmaster frowned.  “Why aren’t you under my control?  They promised me that I would have the power to control anybody!”

“Sounds like you need a refund,” Sam said as he punched him in the face.  The man went down, hard, but they had made enough noise that there was no way the rest of the Circus hadn’t heard them.  From the partition in the far end of the warehouse came the sound of something large moving, so the elephant wasn’t a total surprise, but it was still unexpected.

“I would just like to point out that I didn’t say anything about elephants,” Bucky yelled as he worked to get Cap free.  The cage was apparently soundproof as well, to the frustration of both.

“Somehow that isn’t making me feel any better.  I don’t want to fight an elephant, elephants are cool.”  Sam took to the air to avoid being trampled as he faced off against the Rajah.  It was pretty clear that the elephant was under his control, so Sam focused on trying to take him out while avoiding the elephant’s attack.  

He was a joy to watch in battle, Bucky thought as he worked to try to figure out the release mechanism of the cage, brutal and efficient, but graceful in the air.  He was his own man, but there was something about the way he moved that was reminiscent of Steve.  A hint of motion to his right was enough to have his gun up and fired without looking away from the control panel.  A quick glance to the side, and yep.  That must be Bruno the Strongman, down for the count.

Steve gestured again, clearly antsy to get out and join the fight.

“Keep your pants on, Steve, it was a tranq dart.” 

Bucky glanced over once to confirm - yep, Rajah was down, and the elephant had gone docile.  He continued working on the controls for the cage while Steve waved his arms in what looked like an increasingly frantic game of charades.  

“I’m tryin’ here Stevie, jesus!  I don’t have a manual for this thing.  If you did a better job of takin’ care of yourself we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.”  It was the way Steve froze that caught his eye next rather than anything else.  He had stopped his frantic waving and was instead pointing, very slowly, directly past Bucky.  He turned, back of his neck prickling, and looked up at the...thing that was approaching out of the shadows.  Up, and up again.  Into the giant, gaping maw of a T-Rex.

Eschewing finesse, he smashed the control panel of cage with his left hand.  The light vanished immediately, and Steve lept out.  

“On it’s head - it’s a control module.  We need to take that out.”

“Hear that, Sam?  There’s a control module,” Bucky shouted into his comm.

“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW?!  I do not get paid enough for this shit!  Steve, drinks are on your dumb ass tonight.  So many drinks.”

“Keep it distracted, Sam!”

“I would just like to point out that because your stupid bouncy tail couldn’t wait thirty damn seconds for backup, I’ve had to spend my day being attacked by gigantic snakes, fighting a goddamned elephant, and now there’s a fucking dinosaur.  A DINOSAUR, STEVE.  We are going to get drunk and watch Jurassic Park, and then I’m going to tell everybody we know about how you were kidnapped by a dude in a sparkly top hat and his team of second-rate losers.”

“Falcon, focus!”

“Ehehehehehehe.  Heh heh.  EHEHEHEHEHEHE!”  The last member of the group finally made his appearance from behind the dinosaur, who was lunging and snapping at Sam.  A punch from Bucky’s mechanical arm left it momentarily stunned.  The new guy was...a clown.  A terrifying creepy-ass murderclown, holding what was presumably the device he was using to control the T-Rex.

“Are you fucking kidding me right now?  No.”

“Do you like my little pet?  Devil Dinosaur certainly seems to like you...I am the Clown, leader of the…”

“NO.”  The extra force he could get behind his kicks when he used the wings was always nice, but it was extra satisfying today.  The crunch of his foot connecting with the Clown happened at almost the same time as Steve managed to hit the control unit on the dinosaur’s head with his shield.  There was a tense moment as the dinosaur looked at them as if pondering if it wanted to attack or not, but it passed and it lumbered back off to the far end of the warehouse.

“So,” Bucky said.  “That was fun.  I’m just going to...call SHIELD for a clean-up team.”

 

* * *

They settled in to the SHIELD safe-house for the night, and Steve approached Bucky while Sam was in the kitchen making popcorn.

“So.”

“So.”

“I, uh...thanks for the save today, Buck.  I appreciate it.”

“Hey, no problem Stevie.  I just, uh...you know.”

“I’ve missed you.”

“I missed you too.  And we do need to talk.  Just...maybe not tonight?  Sam was talkin’ up this movie a lot.  But...soon.  I promise.”

“Thanks, Buck.  I can wait.”

“Sit down, losers, I’ve got popcorn.”  Sam flung himself down on the couch between them and brought up the opening credits.  Being an Avenger was never dull, but times like this with two of his favorite people in the world?  That made it all worthwhile.


End file.
